y> i() Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



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His brothers felt quite surprised and pleased with their 

 little brother when they heard hirn talk in this way; and when 

 after a little time they had recovered from their amazement, 

 they told him to try and find their father and mother. So he 

 said he would go. It was a long time ago that he had finished 

 his first labour, for when he first appeared to his relatives in 

 their house of singing and dancing, he had on that occasion 

 transformed himself into the likeness of all manner of birds, of 

 every bird in the world, and yet no single form that he then 

 assumed had pleased his brothers : but now when he showed 

 himself to them, transformed into the semblance of a pigeon, 

 his brothers said: 'Ah, now indeed, oh brother, you do look 

 very well indeed, very beautiful, very beautiful, much more 

 beautiful than you looked in any of the other forms which you 

 assumed, and then changed from, when you first discovered your- 

 self to us.' What made him now look so well in the shape he 

 assumed was the belt of his mother, and her apron, which he 

 had stolen from her while she was asleep in the house : for the 

 very thing which looked so white upon the breast of the pigeon 

 was his mother's broad belt, and he also had on her little apron 

 of burnished hair from the tail of a dog ; and the fastening of her 

 belt was what formed the beautiful black feathers on his throat. 

 He had once changed himself into this form a long time ago, 

 and now that he was going to look for his father and mother, 

 and had quitted his brother to transform himself into the like- 

 ness of a pigeon, he assumed exactly the same form as on the 

 previous occasion ; and when his brothers saw him thus again, 

 they said, ' Oh brother ! oh brother ! you do look really well 

 indeed ;' and when he sat upon the bough of a tree, oh dear ! he 

 never moved or jumped about from spray to spray, but sat 

 quite still, cooing to himself, so that no one who had seen him 

 could have helped thinking of tbe proverb, ' A stupid pigeon sits 

 on one bough, and jumps not from spray to spray.' Early 

 the next morning, he said to his brothers, as was first stated, 

 ' Now do you remain here, and you will hear something of me 

 after I am gone ; it is my great love for my parents that leads 

 me to search for them : now listen to me, and then say whether 

 or not my recent feats were not remarkable. For the fact of 

 transforming oneself into birds can only be accomplished by a 

 man who is skilled in magic, and yet here I, the youngest of you 

 all, have assumed the form of all birds ; and now, perhaps, after 

 all, I shall quite lose my art, and become old and weakened in 

 the long journey to the place where I am going.' His brothers 

 answered him thus : ' That might be, indeed, if you were going 

 on a warlike expedition, but, in truth, you are only going to look 

 for those parents who we all so long to see; and if they are found 

 by you, we shall ever after all dwell happily, our present sorrow 

 will be ended, and we shall continually pass backwards and 



